Nearly 1,000 manufacturers around the world – including household names such as Honeywell International, General Electric, Boeing, Toshiba and Johnson & Johnson – use Assent’s cloud-based software to ensure their supply chains comply with an ever-growing list of ethical and regulatory standards.
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U.S. investment firms Vista Equity Partners Management and Blackstone Inc. have bought out the other venture-capital investors in Ottawa enterprise software star Assent for about US$400 million, one of the firm’s co-founders confirmed to OBJ on Monday.
Rob Imbeault, Assent’s former engineering lead who helped launch the company in 2010, said the deal – which values the firm at about US$1.3 billion – has been in the works for months.
“It’s the nature of progress in these types of businesses,” said Imbeault, who left Assent in late 2017 but remains a shareholder.
“It’s all positive news. It showcases Ottawa talent once again. I’m from Montreal, and Ottawa has been incredibly good to me. I’m a big fan of the city and its tech talent. Onward and upward for Assent.”
Nearly 1,000 manufacturers around the world – including household names such as Honeywell International, General Electric, Boeing, Toshiba and Johnson & Johnson – use Assent’s cloud-based software to ensure their supply chains comply with an ever-growing list of ethical and regulatory standards.
The company, which employs about 1,000 people, made headlines last year when then-CEO Andrew Waitman announced it had reached US$100 million in annual recurring revenues.
Imbeault said he believes Assent’s ARR “is much higher than that now.” He said Vista and Blackstone’s decision to buy out the other VCs who previously invested in the company is a testament to the visionary leadership of Waitman, who stepped down as chief executive last month after more than a decade in the top job and was named OBJ’s CEO of the year in 2024.
“It’s such a strong company and had to withstand these headwinds these past few years,” he said. “The macro environment has been challenging for most startups, and Assent just continued on.”
The Globe and Mail reported Sunday that two early investors in Assent, Boston-based Volition Capital and Toronto’s First Ascent Ventures, recently sold their stake in the company to Vista. Citing unidentified sources, the Globe said Warburg Pincus, which originally invested US$100 million in Assent in 2018, and U.S. investor StepStone Group Inc. also sold out.
Blackstone did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday morning. In response to an inquiry from OBJ, Vista spokesperson Brian Steel confirmed “a transaction involving Vista and Assent” took place in 2024, but he would not disclose any further details.
In an email to OBJ, Assent spokesperson Charmaine D’Silva would not confirm the sale had occurred, but said the firm is “incredibly proud of the continued confidence Vista Equity Partners has placed in Assent.”
D’Silva said the U.S. VC’s investment in the Ottawa company “is a strong vote of confidence in the strength of our team, our platform, and the significant market opportunity ahead of us.”
She also said the recent appointment of Michael Southworth to succeed Waitman as CEO and the hiring of Minnesota-based Mark Smith as chief customer officer earlier this year are further proof that Assent is “entering a new phase of growth and customer focus.”
Moving up the ranks
The deal marks another major step in Assent’s rise to the top ranks of the Ottawa software pantheon.
The brainchild of Ottawa boxers and entrepreneurs Matt Whitteker and Jonathan Hughes, the firm was hatched in the basement of Imbeault’s Barrhaven home in 2010.
Originally funded out of the founders’ own pockets, the company then known as Assent Compliance really began to take off when Waitman – a former managing partner of Ottawa VC firm Celtic House Venture Partners – joined the firm in 2014 after a stint as CEO of IT services provider Pythian.
Waitman, who had met Whitteker while training for a celebrity boxing match, needed an office and decided to work out of Assent’s headquarters.
But he quickly sensed the fledgling firm's potential and agreed to take the reins. He put $1 million of his own money into the fledgling enterprise, which then had 25 employees and annual revenues of about US$1 million.
“It was a huge vote of confidence,” Imbeault said of Waitman’s investment. “Having Andrew join, that changed the nature of the company. We were making money and growing the company kind of organically. But Andrew, being a VC himself and just educating us on venture capital and how we could grow the company that way, I think that was the big differentiator."
The deal comes amid an ongoing lull in mergers, acquisitions and IPOs in the Canadian tech sector as economic uncertainty fuelled by the trade war with the U.S. continues to put a damper on transaction activity.
Ottawa venture capitalist Code Cubitt, managing director of Mistral Venture Partners, called Vista and Blackstone’s move “a solid win for (Assent’s) early backers and another clear example of the world-class companies” being built in the National Capital Region.
“(Waitman) did a fantastic job of seeing the future of how supply chains needed to evolve and then building the market leader in the space,” Cubitt said in an email to OBJ on Monday afternoon.
Noting the company is based in Ottawa and its R&D is still conducted here, Imbeault downplayed any potential fears about Assent being controlled by foreign owners.
“I don’t think (the local) footprint is going to change. If anything it’s going to grow,” he added. “It’s difficult to create unicorns in Canada without support from the U.S. That's just how the world works right now.”
